Super Clunky Ball: Rock Of Ages Videos

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It really is about time we caught up on Rock Of Ages trailers, don’t you think. The next game from the mad geniuses behind Zeno Clash, ACE Team, is a combination of tower defence and Marble Madness, because that’s the way those people think. And there’s lots of bits of the Pythonesque madness to look at below, including a ten minute walkthrough of how it all works.

First off is a split screen of the War Mode, in which you can watch two balls attempting to outscore.

Next up is a ten minute explanation of the “Tower Offense”, as given to GameTrailers by a member of Atlas’s PR, rather than any of the folk at ACE, sadly.

@Tomm
At least they’re better than Machinima.com then, who take a youtube video, stick an add on the front and then upload it to youtube. Seriously, they don’t even provide the video hosting – what is the point in them.

I believe the actual name for the second mode is “Skee Boulder” as it is a take on the old-timey American arcade game, Skee Ball.
The game (which you may know from the absolutely horrible minigames in PA Adventures, or perhaps as the reason all existence nearly ceased to be in the movie Dogma,) involves rolling balls along a slightly inclined track to launch them into target holes at the end, thus accruing points.

I love ACE Team. Even though this is less of my type of game than Zeno Clash was, their creativity and artwork have got me interested. Tower defense has never clicked for me (even when joined with a shooter in Monday Night Combat), and I can’t really say why because there are a lot of game elements in the genre that I like a lot. Rock of Ages just looks great, though, and even if it doesn’t win me over to liking tower defense games it’s still worth it to me just to see their great imaginations at work.

I’m afraid there’s something wrong with me. Not that I really dislike Plants and Zombies, but I bought it in the Steam xmas sale, played it for about an hour and haven’t felt any urge to go back to it in the two months since. I don’t understand what the fuss is about. Underneath all the trimmings, it’s just another tower defense game.

I can’t say I don’t like Plants vs. Zombies. I think it’s charming and well-designed on every level. But I don’t often find myself really drawn to play it the way I do with other games I feel the same way about, like Trine or Magicka.

Looks like good fun, but it just reminds me how much I’d love to see a more narrative based game (mmm, RPG) with Gilliamesque art-direction (Double Fine are certainly that kind of company, if only they’d get the rest of their games onto the bladdy PC). I tend to pass over these more arcadey novelty-game-mechanic titles even when they are well-designed and beautifully presented, simply because I get bored with them quickly.